


We Are Only Pieces

by jenni3penny



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Challenge Response, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 13:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13742424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: Cross posted from Tumblr (so some of you have already read them). Each chapter is a separate response to a prompt challenge that listed ways of saying 'I love you'. Charlotte included!





	1. Chapter 1

Prompt: 'too quick, mumbled into your scarf'

***

The wind is bitter and brutal and he’s not quite sure why they built the city to resemble parallel sheer and straight-lined canyons but, Christ Almighty, the unnaturally strong whirlwind just sucks all the air from the lungs. Manhattan’s a veritable wind tunnel, up and down, and he’s not sure if Mac is slowing down and dragging him back or if the wind’s catching her up and trying to tug them apart.

“We should have just taken the train.”

“Five more minutes, hon. Maybe ten,” he tosses back and over his shoulder, his attention halved and distracted by the fact he can see the ACN outcropping. It’s in his sight line and they’ll be inside soon enough if he can just -

“Will, stop,” she demands, her tone of voice remarkably similar to the one she uses in the middle of board meetings (and the only reason he knows that is because Millie’s let him wait outside the door of one or two or ten).

He squeezes her hand in his but pauses anyhow, turns into the way she tugs back at him. “We’re almost back, Mac.”

“I’m freezing,” she mutters with a wisp of a whine attached, the wind swallowing the rest of her voice up as she curls her hand tighter in his. He can feel the thin bones in her knuckles shift, the press of her diamond between his fingers and the way her wrist tightens so that she can wedge their hands between them. “Please? Just - ”

“You _are_ cold.” Will frowns unconsciously, lets one hand stay tucked between them and warming her chilled fingers while the other hand grabs her closer by the waist. “I’m sorry. Fuck the train – we shoulda taken a cab.”

“It’s okay. Just gimme a minute like this,” she asks of him gently and plying against him, trying to tuck up along his front and managing it quicker than even he expected. God, she has him completely wrapped up and bending. “You’re so wonderfully warm, Billy.”

“Who’s idea was it to walk to lunch?” He chuckles even as he asks, flushed as he leans his mouth down and brushes his lips past hers. She’s still cold to the touch and he feels her whimper up between his lips and press her mouth to his, her hands clutching into his shirt and crushing the fabric up in her fingers. There’s a pull from her that’s unavoidable and sexy at once and he just wraps the wool of his overcoat tighter curled around her as she wiggles tighter to his front.

The sigh she gives him as she ducks her face into his front is sorta cute and small and sweet. “The snow was pretty. It looked like a snow globe.”

His wife is adorable.

She’s just… goddamn it. _She’s adorable_.

Even on a plain Tuesday afternoon when he’s enticed her out of the office by way of sparkling snow and the tease of a late lunch at the Palm…

“It’s a good thing I’m the only one who knows how much of an idiot romantic you are,” Will tells her gently, murmurs it into her ear and tightly so that the wind doesn’t steal the words away from between them. He lets her cuddle in closer a moment and enjoys the feel of her pressed up into him, the tight and intimate nearness of her under his favorite winter coat.

“Don’t.” She clutches at him as he tries to shift, leans into the way he stretches a hand up from her and waves at traffic. “Where are you going?”

“I’m hailing a cab. We’ll go get some hot coffee and then go back.”

“It’s not that far, Will. It’s not - ”

“Just shush,” he throws off with a slashed tone of dismissal, still cradling her into his front and curling up around her so that he can bury his face into the intersection of her throat and hair and shoulder, the space that smells of warm spiced perfume and comfort. “C'mere.”

She laughs and mumbles into the cashmere heat of the scarf she’d bought him herself, months before. “I love you.”


	2. Chapter Two

Prompt: 'when baking chocolate chip cookies'

***

Charlie squeals in bright and giddy laughter and there’s flour nearly everywhere. The floor is a mess, the counter’s just as tragic and her cartoons are still blasting high pitched and tinny music throughout the kitchen. His daughter is grasping up handfuls of white powder and flinging it into the air, chubby toddler hands already utterly dusted and caked a grubby white as she giggles again. It plumes half up the counters and swirls back down around his feet and he can’t save himself from chuckling as she squeals once again, her eyes bright with curious pleasure and sheer happiness. She just lifts her hands and shows them to him, all messy with powdered flour and chocolate smears and she’s entirely clad in the happiness only a toddler can have while tip-top to toe in flour, granulated sugar, and whatever else he hadn’t actually managed to get into the bowl before she’d destroyed his attempt at baking. MacKenzie is just absolutely going to kill him if she sees her kitchen in such disarray, if she sees -

“ _Jesus, William_.”

Fuck. Double fuck. Shit, fuck, and goddamnit.

“Hey, she started it.” he defends himself quickly, pointing downward to where Charlotte has one of her messy hands curled into the denim of his pant leg. There’s a smear of chocolate across her face and a flash of powdery flour over a cheek, down her front, in the mop of her hair. “Pipkin lobbed the first grenade, Mac.”

Charlotte’s just plain damn adorable with both her hands gripped into his jeans, her fists balling the fabric and smearing flour into the denim as she pulls herself straighter up against his shin. She’s just tall enough (with his help) that he can smooth her hair back from her forehead, flour gritting between his fingers and the silky sorta blonde-ish color.

“Oh, dear God,” MacKenzie’s voice swings low and quiet as she minces her steps carefully closer. Her ankles are tight as she stays on the toes of her Louboutins, very carefully navigating at least ten to fifteen melting little bits of chocolate on the expensive kitchen tile. “My darling girl… she’s just… covered.”

He sighs in answer to the grazing disappointment in her tone of voice, watching as she stretches down and accepts the way Charlie is reaching for her. “Mac, she’s fine.”

He can damn near hear her roll her eyes as she lifts their daughter, the silken shirt she’s wearing already palmed with little flour filled hand prints up the sleeves. “She’s an utter mess, Will.”

He winces when Charlie reaches for Mac’s hair and tugs into it.

“She’s _happy_ , baby.” He shrugs off the fact that the kitchen looks like someone has carpet bombed the back of a bakery. “I swear, I’ll clean it up.”

He knew Mac’s wrath was a possible result…

Making his daughter laugh so freely was more than worth it, though.

“She’s ecstatic actually,” she corrects quietly after a moment, an exquisite smile curving itself over her lips as Charlie’s flour caked hands pat her mother’s cheeks. Another peal of happy laughter comes off their child, the sound of it matching the pitched volume of the cartoons still playing across the room. “And yes, _you_ will.”

Right, so… his wife is perfect.

“We missed you today,” he tells her sincerely, wiping his hands on his hips and doing what he can to get the caked flour off his fingertips. His admission sounds like loving and smells like baked goods and there hasn’t been a moment in his life til now when he ever thought both those thing would be the case at once.

Still, he watches his wife and daughter in profile and he’s got no problem accepting this particular moment of domesticity in trade for and hour on television. Just watching them, noting how much more Charlotte looks like her mother by the day, especially in the way they secretly smile at each other…

“I missed you two so much,” Mac admits on a hush, dipping her head forward so that Charlie can plant an especially damp kiss against her cheek. “Mmmm, hello love. Cookies for dinner? Huh?”

Will shrugs, still doused in flour and enjoying the way the both of him turn to look at him. “Dessert first?”

There’s something especially sugared sweet in the way Mac just slowly blinks and sighs, “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you've already read both of them then I'm sorry that there isn't anything new.  
> I'll try to add another chapter. Title from Rumi.


End file.
